Amid concerns about the presence of potentially harmful radioactive materials on their property, Jacquelyn and Jeremy Linkowski moved out of their Town of Niagara home last week.
With recent tests performed by a private engineer showing extremely high readings, the Chester Avenue homeowners felt they had no choice but to move to East Amherst, where they have taken up what they hope will be temporary residence with Jacquelyn’s parents.
“We had our home tested multiple times by a local engineer and he looked me in the eye and said, ‘I would not live here. You should not have levels like this in your house. It’s not normal,’” Jacquelyn said on Monday.
Follow-up tests performed by representatives from both the New York State Department of Conservation and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency confirmed the private engineer’s findings and the Linkowskis’ worst fears.
Those tests showed extremely high radioactive levels inside the couple’s house, in some cases in common living areas, spaces where they have performed everyday tasks like getting ready for work or watching television together for the past 14 years.
“It took a little bit of time for it to really hit us,” Jacquelyn said. “By the time we went to sleep that first night, we had our house tested; it was the worst, most stressful sleep in our entire lives.”
Like many of their neighbors living in the same area of the town near Reservoir State Park, the Linkowskis are now questioning whether they will ever be able to safely live in their house again.
They were part of a crowd of more than 200 people who attended an “availability session” held Monday at the Niagara Falls Convention Center where officials from the DEC, EPA and state health department attempted — often over shouts of protests from residents sitting in the audience — to explain how their respective agencies are handling the situation.
They were also among a contingent of about 40 local residents and homeowners who stormed out of the meeting early in protest, more than an hour before representatives from the regulatory agencies finished their formal presentation.
The Linkowskis and others who walked out of the meeting said it did not go as DEC and EPA representatives told them it would when they announced plans for the session last week.
Their biggest complaint: Lack of the opportunity for concerned residents to ask their own questions and a requirement that they instead submit questions in writing before the session began.
“The only reason why this meeting is happening is that our support team pressed them for a public community meeting,” Jacquelyn said. “They heard us yap. We didn’t want them to hear us yap more. We wanted our neighbors, whom we love dearly, and all of their friends and family to have five minutes to have a dialogue of questioning back and forth so that everyone could be heard and we made that request to them three or four times.”
Carolyn Johnson, a neighbor of the Linkowskis who has also gone public with her concerns about high radioactivity testing levels at her residential property on Fox Avenue, also said both agencies reneged on a commitment they made over the weekend to give residents the chance to ask their questions themselves instead of having to submit them in writing.
Beyond issues with the handling of the meeting, Johnson said many residents are still lacking acceptable answers to their lingering questions about whether or how the state and federal agencies will handle relocation of affected property owners.
“It’s so hard to listen to them lie,” Johnson said.
“Everything they said they just keep going back on,” she added.
During Monday’s availability session, public officials struggled to answer questions and to present information about ongoing radiological survey work while dealing with outbursts from many frustrated residents sitting in the crowd.
The at-times chaotic meeting faced numerous interruptions, with some angry attendees firing off questions about whether the public officials on the stage would live in their neighborhoods or allow their children to play in yards where high levels of radiation were detected.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, who earlier in the day on Monday held a pair of press conferences on other matters in the City of Buffalo, also drew heavy criticism for failing to attend the meeting in the Falls in person. She did release a video on the radiological concerns.
Instead, Hochul appointee and current DEC Commissioner Amanda Lefton took the stage at the convention center along with EPA Regional Director Mike Martucci and state health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald.
All three officials attempted to allay residents’ concerns, saying their respective agencies are working together to expedite resources to make sure tests are performed as needed, results are processed quickly and impacted homeowners are given the proper guidance and support moving forward.
The DEC and EPA sent letters in May to 121 homeowners in Niagara and Erie counties as part of a request for permission to enter their private properties to perform on-site testing. The notification letters followed earlier radiological survey work performed by air and by truck by the two agencies.
On Monday, officials said a total of 39 property owners signed access agreements to allow on-site testing. Six of those properties were found to have elevated radioactivity levels, warranting additional testing by the DEC and EPA. The two agencies are still waiting for responses from more than 80 property owners and have revised their notification letter to accommodate concerns voiced by residents who have questioned whether signing the access form meant signing away their rights to take legal action in the future.
During Monday’s meeting, Lefton and other DEC representatives encouraged residents who received requests to perform on-site testing to sign off as soon as possible so additional survey work can be completed.
“We will do whatever is necessary to ensure New Yorkers are protected and informed,” Lefton said.
“We commit to doing that until the job is done,” she added.
Martucci said all three agencies — the EPA, DEC and state health department — are now working “shoulder to shoulder” to ensure the best methods are used to pinpoint where potentially harmful materials may exist and what is needed to address areas posing the greatest risks to people. He said the agencies are also taking residents’ requests for relocation assistance seriously and will take steps to clean up areas of concern as needed.
“I want to be very clear. We are not driven in this activity by cost,” he said.